BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, October 27, 1823

The second performance of Weber’s new opera, Euryanthe, occurs today. This performance will be the subject of discussion at Steiner’s music shop tomorrow.

In today’s Wiener Zeitung at 1003, the Th. Weigl music shop in Vienna advertises the new publication by the C.F. Peters company in Leipzig of two works by Beethoven’s former pupil, Ferdinand Ries. The first of these, his Rondo elegant for piano op.122 has previously appeared, but Weigl also announces Ries’ solo piano arrangement of Concertante Variations on a Popular Air from the Ballet Nina, composed by Joseph Mayseder, originally written by Mayseder for violin and piano. This arrangement does not appear to have been assigned an opus number. The piece seems to have also been more or less simultaneously published in London by John Gow & Sons, and in Paris by Richault. The ballet had been performed in London to much acclaim in 1821.

The review of Ries’ arrangement in The Harmonicon (No. IX, September, 1823 at p.129) warns of its extreme difficulty: “The share which Mr. Ries has taken in this is confined, we suppose, to the mere adaptation of the various parts to the piano-forte. It was not, then, within his province to lighten the difficulties that every page, nay, almost every line, presents, which will assuredly restrict its performance to those who either have already gained a mastery over the instrument, or are labouring with more than usual zeal and industry to attain such an end: all the middling class of players, which includes the great bulk of amateur performers, will be, we fear, deterred from entering upon so arduous a task.”

The firm of S.A. Steiner & Co. also promises at p.1004 that in a few days Weber’s opera Euryanthe will be produced in versions for two- and four-hand piano, first complete, then the overture in both formats, and later the entire opera for four-hand piano, and violin/flute quartets.

Sauer & Leidesdorf advertise on the same page of the Wiener Zeitung the two newest songs by Franz Schubert, op.24: Gruppe aus dem Tartarus by Schiller (now catalogued as D.583), and Schlummerlied by Mayerhofer (D.527). Both songs had been written in 1817 and are only now being published. The same advertisement also hawks Schubert’s first Grand Sonata for piano four hands, op.30 (D.617, written in 1818), a rare appearance of Schubert instrumental music in these advertisements. Schubert, like Beethoven, was clearly going through his older works now that he has made a name for himself.

Schubert’s Grand Sonata for piano four hands op.30/D.617 is here performed live by Luca Ciammarughi and Stefano Ligoratti: